Blood-drenched Beard : A Novel (9781101635612) (21 page)

The receptionist makes a face as if to say “I warned you,” holds up the palms of his hands, and returns the paper with the address on it. The taxi pulls up at the entrance to the hotel. Inside it smells of wool, and the windows are fogged up. The elderly man in a beret behind the steering wheel reacts as if he already knew his passenger's destination.

It's one of the best places around. I can pick you up if you need me to. Here's my card. But be warned. Don't spend what you haven't got.

 • • • 

T
he blinking neon of
Deliryu's Nightclub is a few miles out of town, on high ground just off the highway, along a gravel driveway. The square, windowless building is surrounded by a pine plantation. The bouncer, a friendly, hulking bald guy in a black suit, weighing some four hundred pounds, bows ceremoniously and informs him that the cover charge is forty
reais
. He is given a pay card with his name at the top, and he enters. The place looks much bigger on the inside than it did from the outside and is almost empty. At the back are the bathrooms and a small stage with a metal post. The floor is swept by colorful circles from a spinning spotlight in the middle of the ceiling and green light beams coming from another mechanism above the stage, which picks out the silhouettes of the hookers, who are in two small groups at the back of the club, leaning on the wall, or lounging on sofas, almost hidden in the dim light. Another bouncer, of average stature, wearing jeans and a leather jacket, greets him inside. His gray hair is slicked back with some kind of shiny gel or grease. There are two hookers leaning against the bar, and he can see these ones well: a thin, grumpy-looking blonde, who tries to smile when she sees him, and a tall brunette with very white skin and a slightly gothic look, who is talking to a young waiter with a goatee. She is wearing black knee-high boots with metal buckles and is standing on one leg, with the other perched on the round stool. To his right, in an area that has half a dozen booths with tables and sofas, is the only other client in the place, an older man accompanied by a young woman. It can only be Zenão Bonato.

He walks over and introduces himself. Zenão, a mulatto who appears to be about sixty, although he is older than that, motions for him to sit on the adjacent sofa. He looks like a former athlete, someone who has had to maintain a considerable amount of muscle mass his whole life, like a boxer or rower. He is wearing dress pants, good shoes, and a wool blazer. A cigarillo is burning between his fingers, and the smoke from his last few puffs forms a dome that spreads lazily around the three of them.

The young woman's legs are draped over her client's. Her black tube dress barely passes her waist, and he can see her red panties. Her long, straight hair looks discolored and seems to give off a white light. In fact, her whole head emanates a slightly ghostly light. He strains to see her better. She is albino.

Guess what her name is? asks Zenão, noting his interest. Ivory! A guttural laugh escapes the old man's throat in long bursts that end in a smoker's wheeze and start up again with full force. It takes some time. While he tries to stop laughing, he pours himself another generous shot from the bottle of Natu Nobilis on the table. Ivory mixes a little of the same whiskey with an energy drink in her tall glass, sips it with her colorless lips, and then analyzes it with a pair of gray eyes almost camouflaged in her un-made-up face.

Why did you want to meet me here?

I'm among friends here.

I figured that.

Because I don't know you, and I'm not really sure why you wanted to come and see me in person. You didn't strike me as dangerous, but at my age, in my line of work . . . a guy calls you wanting to know about an old case . . . you know how it is.

I can imagine. Don't worry.

And I might as well take the opportunity and have some fun, right? These folks owe me so many favors that I can hide the hedgehog for free until I die.

While Zenão has another long fit of laughter, he notices one of the hookers at the back of the club heading toward their table. She sits next to him without touching him. She is a brunette with large thighs, wet hair, and lips cracked with cold. She is drenched in perfume and appears to have stepped out of the shower moments earlier.

Can I keep you company?

I'm just here to have a quick chat with my friend here.

But what fun is that if you're alone? What's your name?

It takes him a few minutes to get rid of her.

Pick one, says Zenão.

What?

Pick one, and call her over to sit here. They're going to keep coming one by one, and when they've all tried, they're going to start again. The house is empty.

The waiter sees him signal and comes over to the table.

Ask the girl in boots over at the bar to come here. And I'd like a can of beer.

I'm on it.

The
forró
song that is playing gives way to a Roxette song that he recognizes from his tender youth. He has to raise his voice to be heard, and he and Zenão lean in toward each other, sandwiching the albino girl between them. She nibbles on Zenão's ear and then pulls her white hair over her shoulder and occupies herself inspecting it for split ends. Zenão confirms that he was the police chief in Laguna in 1969.

Do you remember a case where a man was stabbed to death in Garopaba at the end of that year? A man who was known as Gaudério?

A female voice sings “Listen to your heaaart” in his ear, and the weight of a body shakes the seat cushion on the sofa. The smell of cinnamon chewing gum reaches his nostrils.

I was hoping you'd call me.

I like your boots. What's your name?

Honey.

Your real name.

That's something you don't ask, handsome.

He stares into her eyes. Blue irises, heavy mascara. Bloodred lipstick. A small mole on her left cheekbone. It is all he can make out in the half-light.

It's Andreia.

Have a seat, Andreia. I'll talk to you properly in a minute. I just need to finish talking to my friend here.

Can I order a drink?

What would you like?

Wine.

Go ahead and order one.

Zenão gives him a little slap on the knee.

Doesn't she look a bit like a young Anjelica Huston?

Who?

Your girl there.

She looks like who?

Anjelica Huston. The actress. You know?

He doesn't but he looks at Andreia and pretends to be considering it.

I think she does a bit. But anyway. At the end of 'sixty-nine.

I remember that story about the guy who was killed in Garopaba. It was one of the weirdest cases I'd ever come across, which is probably why the investigations didn't get very far.

Weird why?

Because there was no body.

My dad told me the same thing. That when he got there, he couldn't find out where they'd buried my granddad. There was a beggar's grave with grass growing over it. It didn't look recent.

Come again? Your dad? What are you talking about?

His name was Hélio. He was the one who told me the story.

Ah, his son. From Porto Alegre. That's right, we managed to track him down a few days later. He came. Blond hair, smoked like a chimney.

That's him.

I remember him. But anyway. The mystery is that there was no body when I got there.

Who'd they bury then?

Dunno. Listen. I got a tip-off by telegraph. There were no phones in Garopaba back then. I think they only got phone lines in the mid-seventies. Sometimes they'd call the station in Laguna and ask us to come and investigate more serious crimes in the region. Garopaba had been a separate municipality since the early sixties. The municipalities had their own police commissioners, but it was all a bit primitive. I saw the lockup once, a little guard post with iron bars where they'd hold their criminals. It was near the parish church. The guy would spend a day in the lockup, and then he'd have to pull weeds in the square in the presence of the police chief or officer. I was called in a few times to resolve things there. Murders, violent rapes, arson.

Arson?

Garopaba has a long tradition of arson.

Were there many murders? One local told me no one had ever been killed in Garopaba.

People are killed everywhere. There were lots of problems when the gauchos started moving there. There was an invasion of them overnight. They'd come to camp, surf. Hippies. A lot of them stayed on, and the place was overrun with them. They started to get involved in money, property, power. There was even a gaucho killer. His name was Corporal Freitas. He was kept in work for many years until someone took him out too. He was a walking archive.

Andreia nuzzles up to him.

Move closer.

Her breath now smells of sweet wine.

Put your hand on my leg.

He obeys and feels her fishnet tights. Her cold thighs pin his fingers.

So my granddad wasn't the only one.

Far from it. But your granddad's story was different. We got a telegram on a Monday saying a man had been killed the night before. We didn't even get wind of most crimes. There was a lot of local justice. There were hardly any police in the region, and people took matters into their own hands. I left Laguna by car on the Tuesday morning. Rain pissing down. There was lightning on the highway, a huge owl hit my windshield and cracked the glass, and then there was that dirt road, which was atrocious in those days. I arrived in Garopaba town center after noon and went to talk to people. First they told me that nothing had happened. The town's only policeman didn't know what was going on, and I started to realize that the person who'd sent the telegram had done so of their own initiative. Maybe even in secret. No one had been expecting a police chief to show up there. But I let them know who was boss, and they saw that they weren't going to get rid of me that easily and told me the story about the lights going out at the dance. When they came on again, the guy was dead. Gaudério. No suspect, of course. There wasn't a trace of blood in the hall by the time I got there, or the murder weapon, nothing. The body had disappeared. I spent the day trying to find out what I could, but there wasn't much to be done. Night fell, and I was about to leave when a woman came to talk to me and said she'd sent the telegram.

Who was she?

If I understood right, she was your granddad's girlfriend. A local girl of Azorian descent, quite young, about twenty years old. She hadn't gone to the dance because she'd had stomach cramps, but someone had gone to tell her about the commotion in the town, and she'd run to the hall to see what had happened. The scene she described didn't make sense. The hall was empty, but there was a huge pool of blood on the ground and signs of a fight, overturned tables and chairs, broken glasses. She said there were women crying in the street, with children fanning them. All she understood was that Gaudério had been killed. She was told not to get involved and they dragged her back home.

What was her name?

I forget. Soraia? Sabrina? I think it started with an
S
. But it's a guess. I'm not sure, it's been a long time. She must have loved your granddad. To contact a police chief under those circumstances. I promised her that I'd look for his body. I ordered a search over the next few days, and nothing was found. I closed the case.

My dad said there was a grave in the cemetery.

Yes. A few days after wrapping up the case, I found your dad because the girl knew he lived in Porto Alegre and that his family was from a small town, Taquara, I think. Was that it? He went to Garopaba and called me that afternoon saying his dad was buried in the cemetery. It can't be, I said. We didn't find a body. Your people didn't, he said, but apparently someone here did. He's in a pauper's grave. I didn't know. I had a look myself sometime later, and there really was a grave there that people said was Gaudério's. It was a lie, of course. They had to show the man's son something. Truth is, a body was never found. They must have dumped it way out at sea.

Something about this story doesn't gel.

Nothing does. I think there's some mystery there that no one'll ever know. When I got there to investigate the crime, it made a really strong impression on me. There was a sinister atmosphere about the place. The locals were nervous. Another thing that the girl who sent the telegram said was that when she got to the hall, the people had already left, and they were all on the beach, about a hundred yards from there, staring out to sea. I noticed the same thing over the next few days. It wasn't as if they were waiting for a boat or looking for a school of fish, but as if the ocean had turned against them. As if they suddenly wished it wasn't there.

That doesn't make sense.

It doesn't.

Wasn't there an inquiry?

No.

But—

He feels confused and doesn't really know what to ask.

Can I order some more wine? asks Andreia. She massages his neck, and he feels her long nails on his skin.

Have you already finished the bottle?

Almost, sexy.

Give me a sip.

She slides the glass over to him and plunges her hand between his legs. The wine is syrupy-sweet, and the glass smells of cigarette smoke.

I'm going to order one more, okay? she says as she signals to the waiter.

Don't drink that rotgut, son. Have some of my whiskey.

Zenão asks the waiter for another glass. It arrives in an instant with three ice cubes, and the former police chief fills it halfway. They clink glasses, and he takes a sip of whiskey. Meanwhile the albino girl gets up, climbs over his legs, and sits next to Andreia. They start to whisper.

There's something else I want to ask you. I heard there was a rumor going around at the time that Gaudério had killed a girl.

The waiter leaves a new bottle of wine on the table. Zenão answers by raising his head and repositioning himself on the sofa, giving the impression that the conversation has arrived where he wanted it to.